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OKWU grows in stature

A remarkable transformation has quietly been taking place near the intersection of Silverlake and Price roads in south Bartlesville.

Little more than a decade after Bartlesville Wesleyan College was renamed Oklahoma Wesleyan University, this small Christian-based institution is beginning to get noticed, not only in Oklahoma, but also nationally by secular media outlets. Most recently, CBS Money Watch ranked OKWU’s professors as best in the nation — for the second year in a row. OKWU has also received positive press from national media outlets such as U.S. News and World Report, Forbes.com, CBN and PBS.

The university’s reputation also continues to grow closer to home. On Friday night, this private school with an approximate total enrollment of 1,220 students hosted a sitting Oklahoma governor, a popular former governor, and the CEO of one the state’s largest and most successful energy companies as it dedicated The Keating Center for Capitalism, Free Enterprise and Constitutional Liberty.

OKWU President Everett Piper was joined by Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin and Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon to honor the namesake of the new Keating Center, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating.

As McClendon sheepishly confessed at Friday night’s gala, he had not even heard of OKWU until approximately six months ago. He certainly knows now, and apparently likes what he sees. His Oklahoma City-based company donated $2 million to establish The Keating Center — among the largest gifts ever to OKWU. In appreciation for the gift, OKWU will name its business school The Chesapeake Energy School of Business.

In the past few years, the campus has also been graced with the completion of the modern Drake Library. Construction on the Keating Center just recently began and is expected to be completed in approximately nine months.

All this is not happening by accident. It requires vision and leadership — something OKWU apparently has in abundance. The university is out front and unapologetic about the Christian faith and principles that guide its mission.

As Piper himself puts it, “While we are very thankful for these affirmations of OKWU’s excellence, we believe this school’s greatest value lies in the fact that we are a university — one of those very rare universities — that engages in the unapologetic and open pursuit of a way, a truth, and a life grounded in something more stable than the ebb and flow of human opinion and the shifting sands of what is politically correct.”